The odd couple

Yucko, the weather has not been fit for man or beast lately.  On Veterans Day we got clipped by a winter storm and got our first snow of the season.

The snow was actively falling when I took those pictures, and my yard had...oh, I'll estimate about half an inch.  The temperature is right at freezing so the stuff is sticking.

It doesn't look like much, but there was enough on the roads to make driving slick, so the schools were closed on Tuesday.  Since then the nighttime temperatures have dipped to around twenty degrees, and the wind chills have been even worse.  Talolili told me that it's just as bad where she is, and that's saying something because she lives in Georgia!  I hope this isn't an indicator of a hard winter.

Regarding today's post, I was only planning to show y'all a couple'a pictures and let that be that, but...being both a woman and a Libra I changed my mind.  In preparation for another post (one that won't be ready for at least another month) I bought this young lady.

I have nursed a fondness for Patsy since my teenage years; she made regular appearances in Doll Reader's "Compo Corner" section, and I fell in love with her rounded hair and chubby cheeks.  I have the name "Patsy" included in the label section, but this doll is really Patsy's little sister Patsyette.  See?

Yes, there is a difference between Patsy and Patsyette, even though the two look a lot alike.  Patsy and her many friends (most of whom were named some variation of "Patsy") were products of Effanbee, and they were made off and on from 1928 to...early 2019, I guess.  Tonner owned Effanbee in recent years, and I assume that means that when Tonner ceased production Effanbee went with them, but even during the Tonner years Patsy was one of their products.  She underwent a few changes under Tonner's rule, but she was still Patsy!  Patsy was apparently the second most popular doll of the composition era, trailing only Shirley Temple.  She had an extensive family, and...oh gosh, I forget how many variations there were!  In addition to Patsy and Patsyette there were Patsy Ann, Patsy Jr., Patsy Joan, Patsy Lou, Patsy Ruth, Patsy Mae, Patsy Baby, Wee Patsy, Patsykin, Baby Tinykin, Patsy Babyette, Patsy Fluff...and there are undoubtedly some I'm missing.  Patsy Fluff is apparently pretty rare; indeed, I only know she exists because I saw her in Doll Reader, and one of their expert columnists had no idea she existed either!  I can't find her image anywhere online, though she wasn't that different in the face from the other members of the Patsy family.  The only member of Patsy's family to NOT have a name based on "Patsy" is also the only boy of the bunch, Patsy's brother/boyfriend, Skippy.  As with Ginny's brother/friend Jeff, Skippy's relation to Patsy depends on the source; some say he's her brother, and some say the two are an item...even though Patsy is only supposed to be three.  I admit that I was of a tender age when I had my first crush, but I sure as heck wasn't three!!!  Patsy's various selves came in a wide range of sizes, ranging from 30-inch Patsy Mae to five-inch Wee Patsy.  Patsyette is towards the smaller end of that continuum, at nine inches.  Close in height to a Licca-chan doll, in other words.

Too bad Patsyette and Sachiko-chan have such different measurements, because they're the perfect height for each other!

Like a great many dolls of the 1930's and 40's Patsyette is composition, but she's unique among my dolls in that she's all-compo.  I only own one other doll that is all-compo like her, that one being Grandma's Shirley Temple doll.

Ah yes, I can remember a day when I said I'd never own a composition doll.  We all know how well I kept THAT promise!  In addition to Shirley and Patsyette I own four baby dolls and two little Polish dolls that are at least partly composition.  Indeed, compo has become one of my favorite mediums as its presence on a doll automatically indicates that said doll is old.  I'm still very choosy with my compo dolls since so many are not aging well, but Patsyette is doing okay.  She's crazed in a few places (mostly her head and legs)...

...and her joints show some normal signs of wear and tear and love and play...

...and like so many of my dolls, she needs restringing.  Easy fix...I hope.  Patsyette's biggest problem is the minor damage on her face; she has some missing paint and some dirt, plus a ding on her nose.  One of my other compo dolls also has a ding on her nose, but Patsyette's doesn't go as deep as Anita's does.

It makes sense that a lot of my composition dolls would have scuffs on their noses, since when dolls tip over they tend to land flat on their faces.  The most prominent part of the face will thus take the biggest beating as the years go by.  In Patsyette's case the problems are minor and largely cosmetic, but I'll still take care to preserve her as the years go by.  As an aside, I love Patsyette's chocolate milk eyes!

Eye color and type varied quite a bit during Patsy's composition years.  Some have blue eyes and some have brown eyes like my doll does, and some have inset eyes made of glassene or tin.  The glassene eyes are the type that my old Shirley Temple has...the kind that crack up and cloud over and make the doll look possessed as time goes by.  My Patsyette, having painted eyes, has thankfully dodged that bullet.  But what pleases me most is the color; as I've said before, I love blue eyes and have blue eyes myself, but blue eyes are overused on dolls.

Since my doll is disrobed let's look briefly at her clothes.  Patsyette came in an outfit that is almost certainly not original.  It doesn't fit the best, but it looks good on her.

Call me crazy, but I love flowing white frocks on old dolls like this.  Mabel wears one, and so does Lili Marlene, one of my composition babies.  Patsyette's dress is made of white eyelet, meaning that she could do with a pair of panties underneath.  Also included were two pairs of shoes and some little socks.  The eBay seller thinks that these shoes and socks are original to the doll, and given the amount of yellowing, I'd say that's a good assumption to make.  If not original they're at least quite old.

The seller admitted that they're not in very good shape, but they're at least in one piece!  They're not in any danger of falling apart either.  As with the doll herself, the biggest problem I can see with these shoes and socks is the discoloring, and that can't be helped!  Likely Patsyette's dress will turn creamy with age too; dust has a way of doing that.

The seller also included an extra dress, much to my surprise and delight.

The dress is too big for Patsyette, but I can adjust the size with some well-placed snaps.

The second pair of shoes have their ties intact and appear to be in better shape than the shoes Patsyette is currently wearing.

Or they WERE in better shape!  I think my dogs ate one of these shoes; all I ever found of it was the lace.  Both these pairs of shoes feel like oilcloth, and as brittle as it was I doubt it lasted long in the maws of my mutts.  I do know that doll shoes from Patsyette's era were made of oilcloth, so I'm tentatively guessing that that's what these are made of.  I'm thankful for these extra things, by the way, as Patsyette has proven to be a tricky doll to clothe.  There ARE clothes available for Patsyette, but the clothes in question are sized for Tonner's version of Patsyette and her measurements are quite different from those of the old doll.  So as with a great many of my other dolls, I'll have to buy a pattern and fire up the ol' sewing machine.  While ready-made clothes are impossible to find for Patsyette, vintage patterns are not.  This site also offers a few things for multiple sizes of Patsy doll, so I may hit them up.  They've even got undergarments!

Most Effanbee dolls came with a button, a metal tag, or both.  My Patsyette, being secondhand, had neither, so I remedied that.

The button is a repro, and once it's on it's on!  I won't be taking this thing off unless I can find a way to cut it off.  I was hoping to use this on each of Patsyette's few dresses, but...nope.  Good thing these are cheap; I can just get a few more!  I also have a tag on the way; it reads "An Effanbee Durable Doll."  I may use that as a necklace for this young lady.

And that, ladies and germs, is Patsyette!  I've always wanted a doll from the Patsy family, and I'm tickled pink to finally have one, especially a little one that can be slipped into the ample pockets that all my winter hoodies have.  For more information on Patsy in general, this link is a good one.  Doll Reference also has a good list of lookalikes, as Patsy was popular enough to spawn plenty of clones.  Some of the clones are pretty cute, especially the Horsman dolls.  Tam also owns a very sweet Patsy from the 1970's, a Wee Patsy, a couple of knockoffs (here and here), and a Skippy that are all worth looking at.  Like me Tam finds it odd that Patsy would have a boyfriend at three years of age, though I'll admit that maybe she and I are both misunderstanding Effanbee's interpretation of the word "boyfriend."  "Boyfriend" can mean a male that one is romantically involved with, but it can also mean a boy who's just a friend, like my childhood crush and I were.  Skippy has some very interesting history, by the way, a history that includes a rather convoluted and unlicensed tie to Skippy peanut butter.

Now, from vintage composition to modern vinyl we go.  I have...yes, another American Girl doll.  This one is my seventh; I've NEVER owned seven AG dolls before.  I've owned six twice in my life, but never seven.  My newest girl is one I've wanted ever since her release.  She's a pre-BeForever Julie Albright, not to be confused with THIS Julie, whom I find just a hair creepy.  Pardon the terrible lighting; Julie's face isn't really that shiny IRL.

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...okay, wrong decade, though it's highly likely that this young denizen of San Fran has heard that song a couple'a times.  OH, I FREAKING LOVE THIS DOLL!!!  I was a bit of a flower child myself during high school.  Admittedly, I was a bizarre one, being right-wing to the hilt even then, but I had the look down pat, and I was outspoken and unafraid to be different like most hippies were.  Julie was introduced towards the end of my adolescence when my love for flowers and beads was still alive and well, and when I learned that American Girl was releasing a hippie-style doll I jumped for joy (no joke).  Julie also reminds me of a friend I had in my youth group at church.  The youth group was largely a bunch of jocks and snobs, but I was able to befriend one of the younger girls, and even today she reminds me of Julie, both in the face and in her personality.  I think Grandma would have gotten Julie for me right then had I not already had six AG dolls at the time (LOL again), and had she not looked a lot like a Madame Alexander doll that I had already.  Gracie (left) and Julie even have the same hairstyle...or they once did.  Julie is missing her minibraid.

Y'all can probably see that overall Julie's hair needs a bit of work.  It's got a fair amount of broken strands up top, and it's pretty frizzy.  It looks better now that I've combed it a little, but it still needs a little TLC.

For the record, my old Felicity doll's hair is about like this; I didn't know then that plastic brushes are a no-no for AG doll hair.

Nothing that Beanbunny's Downy Dunk won't cure, most likely.  Julie's hair could be a LOT worse though, and (thank God) it's not halfway torn out like one of Nethilia's poor dolls!  If I read right, the eBay listing for Neth's victimized doll described her as "gently played with," which was clearly a huge lie.  "Gently played with" does not mean ripping most or all of a hundred-dollar doll's hair out.  Neth was able to fix her doll, but that's beside the point.  My Julie's hair needs a little work, but it's still in pretty good shape, meaning that this doll was played with but not mistreated.  The root job is about the same as Z's.  Remember when I made a big to-do about that?

However, Julie's hair is still a lot thicker than Z's is, and despite the tangles it still FEELS like better quality hair.  Poor Z, outdone by a doll that's been played with!  Remember that I got Z mostly mint in her box, and her hair feels a lot thinner than Julie's.  So I need to perform a little maintenance on Julie's hair, but that's a very minor issue that I can address anytime I want.

Here's the meet outfit that I wanted so terribly.

I'm just going to touch on these items since I just recently reviewed several other AG outfits.  I like BeForever Julie's garb and I know girls in the seventies wore brightly colored outfits like hers, but the BeForever ensemble looks just a hair costume-y to me.  My Julie's getup keeps the seventies aesthetic intact while being more subtle about it.  Plus, she's got a long-sleeved shirt.  I love that!

I've got a sweater that's a little like that myself.  It doesn't have a turtleneck like Julie's sweater does, but it DOES have pockets on the side!  I can't live without pockets, y'all!  I carry my mace in there, LOL!  Anyway, one of the great things about this meet outfit is that I can layer it.  Julie can go with that long-sleeved shirt or without, though I usually prefer her in it.  Look at these colors!

There's a little bit of each color in there, and the blue and violet stripes compliment the embroidery on the blouse.  Here's the blouse; it's white and can be worn with or without the turtleneck underneath...

...but as I noted above, the multicolored turtleneck brings out the blue and the purple embroidery in the blouse.

Probably nowadays that would be printed on, but on my doll it's the real deal.  A few of the stitches appear loose, though I suspect that was a result of Julie being wagged around a lot rather than some futz-up at the factory.

As much as I love Julie's blouse and shirt, I think my favorite thing about her outfit is her blue jeans.  They're two-tone bell bottoms.

I love, love, LOVE bell bottoms!  These bell bottoms are significant in that they make Julie the first (and so far, only) historical American Girl to come in pants rather than a dress or a skirt.  Even the Girls of the Year are more likely to wear dresses or skirts for their meet outfits (Marisol, Sonali, Isabelle, and Gabriela are the exceptions).  I find the extensive usage of dresses and skirts surprising since I rarely see little girls in dresses outside of church nowadays.  But then again, who said these dolls had to dress like real life girls?  Anyway, Julie is wearing blue jeans, and they close in the front with Velcro.

I love doll pants that fasten this way; so many fasten in the back, and I think that looks silly and inaccurate.  Pants fasten in the FRONT, folks...or the side, in the case of Molly's after-school slacks.  Anyway, Julie's jeans fasten in the front like they're supposed to, and they're two-toned as I noted above.  I love these jeans and I wish I had a pair in my size, though Mama warns me that bell bottoms are fairly easy to trip over.  She also noted that the problem was exacerbated by the shoes that girls wore in the seventies:  PLATFORMS!!!  Julie's shoes aren't really platforms, but they do have thick soles.

These are the weakest part of Julie's ensemble in my opinion, because they constantly fall off.  I've NEVER had that problem with American Girl shoes, but then again my dolls very seldom wear sandals!  I have to rubber band these to Julie's feet, and even that's not a foolproof measure.  Usually when I carry Julie around I have to put these shoes in my pocket so they won't get lost.

Oops, I forgot the belt!

This is your typical little belt that can be worn around the waist or the hips, over the blouse or under it, single-knotted, double-knotted, or even in a small bow.  It has a few beads attached to it, as a rope belt from the seventies likely would.

Again, I had a belt like this once...and then one of our dogs destroyed it.  Dang it.  These are easy enough to replace or make, though; heck, maybe Julie DID make this belt!  Her books imply that she's handy with crafts, so it would be easy to pretend that she braided this belt herself.  I love the material that this is made of, by the way.  I think this fabric is supposed to simulate leather, and it's subtly fuzzy to the touch.

So cute!  I love seventies fashion...most of it, anyway.  I'm not a huge fan of the plaid pants that some folks wore, LOL.  Mama tells me that she hated those too.

I mentioned that Julie came with her accessories, a rare thing for my American Girl dolls, so I want to look briefly at the smaller items.  Look at Julie's necklace!

It has her name, quite obviously.  These name necklaces were popular when I was in high school, but they were a lot tackier and had way too much bling.  I don't remember how popular they were in Mama's time, but I know she's got a name necklace...in Egyptian hieroglyphics, no less!  Anyway, Julie's third-wave accessories also have this necklace (her second-wave stuff didn't), but for the most part that's the only thing she's retained from her pre-BeForever days.  Her new purse is this cute tie-dyed number, while her old purse is made of faux leather with painted flowers.

Thank God, this isn't the type of faux leather that splits and looks ratty as it ages.  Indeed, this is a simple but solidly made little purse, with my main gripe being that it slips off Julie's shoulder if you look at it cross-eyed (I usually have to carry it, just like the shoes).  On the plus side, the purse opens up and carries small items.

In my Julie's case the item she carries is an extra hairpiece.

I don't think this belongs to Julie, though it matches her hair perfectly.

For awhile American Girl offered hairpieces to make styling go a little easier, and I suspect that that's what this is.  It looks a lot like the braided headband.  It might also be the headband that came with Caroline's Christmas getup, but somehow I doubt that.  The braid that came with Caroline's dress is shaded to match her hair, and Caroline's hair looks a shade lighter than Julie's in publicity pics.  But having never seen Caroline in person I can't verify that.  For now I'm just going to assume that this is the braided headband that was available separately.   The braid helps make up for Julie's missing minibraid, but it also makes her hat look funny.  See the bump?

Julie's hat is another variant of the soft hats that Z and Denise sometimes wear.  While Z sports a beanie and Denise has a beret, Julie's hat is more of a skullcap.  It fits pretty loosely and slides off easily, but it's still a nicely made hat.  Rather than being knitted like Z's and Denise's hats, Julie's is crocheted.

Not a bad little haul for the price I paid!  The only thing missing is Julie's Bicentennial quarter, and I can find a replacement for that if I so choose.  Julie's seller makes up for her missing coin with the braided band and with with something else that I've not yet seen on an American Girl doll:  pierced ears.

According to her wiki page Julie isn't supposed to have pierced ears, so these holes would have to be a later addition.  The holes in my doll's ears are smooth and uniform in size, which leads me to believe that she once enjoyed a trip to an American Girl Place.  I don't know this for sure, but it's certainly fun to speculate.

Overall I love Julie's meet getup (especially her outer blouse and jeans), but when I'm ready for a change I've got something else...or rather, Mama got her something else.

Good ol' Etsy!  The shop's name is Apparel By Carol, and her items are made from up-cycled or just flat-out recycled stuff, meaning that this outfit is perfect for Julie, who shows signs of becoming an environmentalist.  Modern-day environmentalists bug the living fire out of me as they tend to be obnoxious (and sometimes hypocritical), but in Julie's day DDT was a huge problem and her campaign to save eagles was thus a noble one indeed.  Anyway, I always love upcycled items, as they show that resourcefulness is not 100% dead in this world.  Miss Carol sent a card with the outfit describing a few of the items that she used to make the outfit and how much fun she had with it.  She also noted that the shoes have a slight problem with staining.

No biggie, if Julie stains, she stains.  Samantha has stains on her arms too, and Miss Carol offers a fix in terms of Oxy-10.  I'll give that a whirl if I need to/want to, but for now let's look at what Julie's got.  The pants are made from an old Swedish table runner, and do I wish they came in my size!!!

I wonder what the rest of these items are made of???  The hat and the vest feel like they may be made of vintage upholstery fabric, kind of like the stuff Grandma had in her family room when I was a little girl.  The fabric looks a little like upholstery fabric too.  See?

Regardless of what fabric this is, I love the way it feels.  I sort of wish I had a hat and a vest like this, in fact.  But this isn't in my size, so here's what Julie looks like in it.

 

Not too shabby!  Well okay, the unhemmed pants add a touch of shabby-chic to this outfit, but it sure is cute!  I envy those slacks, LOL.

Since I have Julie's braid holding her hair back, here's a closeup of her face.

Another new head mold!  Julie has the Josefina head, one of my favorite heads.  Indeed, I haven't decided whether I like the Josefina head or the Jess head better.  The Jess head has those cute eyes, but I love the thick lips on the Josefina head.  Interestingly, though Julie is listed as a light-skinned doll she has a bit of a tan.  This is most easily seen when she's standing with Z and Denise.

 
Again, I noticed that Z was darker than Denise even though she's listed as light-skinned, but I'll daresay that Julie is darker even than Z!  She's not as dark as Xenia, though; at the moment Xenia is my darkest eighteen-inch doll.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that Julie has a bit of a tan, since she IS a California girl.  I've also seen other dolls that were allegedly fair who actually had darker skin; Isabelle is the one I can remember.  In her promo pics both Julie and Isabelle look very fair, but in real life they've got a lovely bronze cast to their skin/vinyl.  Overall Julie is a pretty doll; my main complaint with her would be the eyes.  I love brown eyes, and I love brown doll eyes, but as with Z and Crissy and Hailey, Julie's eyes don't photograph too well.

I'm not the only one to complain about this, either.  Farrah Lily says that she has the same problem with her Julie.  I imagine that it must be tough to design brown eyes for dolls.  If they're too light they can look unnatural, and if they're too dark they can look dead.  I was able to remedy this problem with my MiM doll Hailey since I can swap her eyes out, but Julie is stuck with what she's got.  Oh well, she doesn't look too bad, and I LOVE brown eyes with blonde hair!  I'd best be glad that Julie's eyes are brown and not grape juice-colored like Xenia's eyes are.

Now that I've shown y'all my Julie...what but a griping session?  This is late news since all of the other American Girl enthusiasts have discussed this, but AG is releasing three (3) dolls in dresses encrusted with Swarovski crystals.  Obviously these are not for kids.

AG wants FIVE THOUSAND BUCKS for each of these dolls, and the one at L.A. sold sometime last week.  Yes, that's five grand, a "5" with three zeros, and I assume that that money largely pays for the dress since the doll herself is just a plain ordinary American Girl doll.  When I was in college five thousand bucks is what it took to pay for a single semester.  I'll stick with my not-so-limited-edition girls that DON'T have Swarovski crystals, thank y'all too much.  I'll admit that I've admired Jumeaux that cost what a luxury car or a nice house would cost (they cost WAY more than Swarovski Girl did), but would I have bought one?  Probably not.  Even at my age I like to play with my dolls, and how can you play with a doll that costs several grand?  I could never do with them what I have do with my dolls!

Keep your eyes on Patsyette in the coming months.  She'll be popping in and out of the blog a lot.

Hugs and cookies,
RagingMoon1987